


The Bath

by IwillbeReichenbach



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bath Sex, Bees, Fluff, Growing Old Together, Hand Jobs, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mild Smut, My First Smut, Retirementlock, Sherlock Holmes and Bees, Teasing, Worried John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:55:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26947828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IwillbeReichenbach/pseuds/IwillbeReichenbach
Summary: Years after their retirement, Sherlock still knows how to drive John mad in a variety of ways.AKA, John's perspective on the epilogue chapter of my 'I want to go home' series, but it is just a bit of fun that can be read separate and independent to the series.Thanks to the amazing, incandescent and  wonderful Sandrina for making it nice for you all.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 16
Kudos: 109





	The Bath

The gate at the end of the path clangs, the noise waking me from where I sleep lightly in my faithful old armchair. Like us, it has seen quite a bit of action; there is a tear in the arm rest and a bullet hole through the back of it. There is a singe mark too, from one of Sherlock’s experiments gone slightly wrong. I don’t mind the holes or the stains; it is still as comfortable as it has ever been. 

I crane my neck to see through the front window of our little cottage and I am treated to a glimpse of Sherlock coming down the path in the crisp morning light. I have been waiting for him to come home, waiting all night. 

His curls, still raven dark everywhere but at the temples, are damp with dew. So are his boots. His cheeks are flushed with the morning cold and his breath causes bursts of cloudy condensation. 

Settling back, I watch his silhouette through the stained-glass windows in the front door. He leans on his cane to unlace his boots. Bending down causes him to start coughing so taking his shoes off takes longer than it otherwise would. He places them on the edge of the step where the sun will shine on them once it comes all the way up. Turning back, he opens the door slowly and quietly, slipping his thin frame through the smallest gap. He must not realise I’m waiting for him in the sitting room. He must think I’m in bed asleep. He thinks that he has gotten away with his all-night escapade in the fields. Not very often, but sometimes he is wrong.

His back is to me as he edges the door closed. His night vision goggles poke out from his pocket and his black notebook from under his arm. 

“Out all night then?” The cold anger I feel puts an edge to my voice. 

He tenses for a second. Sprung.

“Caught in the act.” He chuckles softly, before becoming fully animated. Practically bouncing as he tells me about the stupid moths. “They came. There were five of them at the hive by the creek. The one sheltered under the big tree. Perfect specimens. Large and bright. Two males and three females from what I could tell. I could hear them squeak.”

I know I should be excited for him. He has been hoping that the moths would come to the hives, but I am mad. I am mad because I am scared. I sigh in exasperation. 

“John, you should have seen them. Perfect specimens. Bright yellow bands, perfectly marked.”

“I don’t care about your bloody Hannibal moths. Look at the state of you.” I say, half to wind him up and half out of exasperation. The result is that he then proceeds to tell me all the reasons why his precious moths have nothing to do with any block buster movies and why they are so incredible. 

“Bloody hell.” I mutter as I grab the blanket off the back of the couch and wrap it around him. “Your teeth are chattering. You need to be careful, Sherlock. Being out in the cold for so long is not a good idea. The lesions.”

“It was unseasonably warm last night.” He argues.

“You’re all wet.”

“Just a bit of mist. It’s morning dew mostly.” 

“Go up and get warm and dry. I’ll bring you some tea.”

He goes passed me, but in wrong direction. Going into the laundry rather than towards the stairs.

With a huff that I very much hope he hears I head to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

“Sherlock,” I call out, “you know what will happen if you get pneumonia again. Don’t make me go through that. Don’t make Rosie go through that. Not again.”

He strides out of the laundry stark naked. Thin and lithe as ever. He quirks as eyebrow at me as I stare.

I toss one of his dressing gowns at him. The one he left on the kitchen table. It hits him in the chest; he never even bothers to catch it. He just heads for the stairs. His bare back and arse and those long, long legs drawing my eye. I sigh, not with exasperation this time, but with defeat. 

The scars are almost invisible these days. They have faded to inconspicuousness much like the emotional ones. They are still there. If you know where to look. If he is prepared to let you see. He shows them to me and for that I feel humble and honoured.

I follow him; of course, I do. I always follow him. But only once the kettle has boiled. I take a cup for myself too. Who knows what chaos he is creating up there?

From the top of the stairs I can hear the bath running. At least that will warm him up.

The bathroom door is wide open, so I don’t bother to knock. I just announce myself by calling ‘tea’ loudly over the sound of the running water. As a rule, I try not to creep up on him.

“‘Hmm,” he mumbles from where he reclines in the tub, ‘you could have made coffee.’

“You ungrateful sod.” I hiss, as he reaches out for it anyway. “I was hoping you’d take a nap. I thought tea might be a better idea.”

He doesn’t say anything. 

“You’re welcome.”

He opens his eyes. Rolls them a bit, but despite his best efforts not to, he smiles at me.

I smile back. The water is already edging towards the top of the old deep claw foot tub that Sherlock insisted on getting installed. He makes no move to turn it off. Leaving it for me to do. Would he have left it to run down the stairs if I hadn’t come in? 

I sit on the edge of the tub and watch him. My hand makes its way to his cheek. Still rosy and cold.

“You stress me out, Sherlock Holmes.”

“I know, but you love it.” He chuckles. “Get in here.”

“What? In the bath?”

“Yep.”

“You’re a child. We won’t both fit.”

“Oh, of course we will. It’s warm as toast. You’ll love it.”

I shake my head, but he grips my wrist and gives it a threatening tug. It seems I will end up in the bath either way.

“All right, all right, give me a second.”

It’s ridiculous but so are most things he suggests, and he is already unbuttoning my shirt. His tea forgotten on the edge of the tub.

It’s a fumble of limbs and angles and swearing and laughter but soon I am reclining between his stupidly long legs with my head rested back on his shoulder. Bubbles spill over onto the floor.

The water is warm, and surprisingly comfortable. We breathe in sync with one another. That is how it feels now, and has for a long time, like we are in sync.

His earlier foolishness still grates at me and won’t let me relax fully. Watching him struggle for every breath when he got ill two years ago had been hard on all of us. It wasn’t long after we got back from working a huge case in America. He had run himself ragged for months to close that case. He had slept for most of the flight home, then fallen asleep on the couch almost immediately after we arrived. I went to the store to grab some groceries and when I returned home, I found him collapsed on the kitchen floor. 

Seeing him so unwell, grey and gasping, knowing how close he came to needing to go onto a respirator, had taken its toll on me. On the second day of hospitalisation I had been so sure that he wasn’t going to make it out of there, that I went to our solicitor to make sure that his will was in order.

Rosie had been heartbroken. She nearly failed two classes because she refused to leave the hospital for more than a few hours at a time. It wasn’t until he pulled his oxygen mask off and told her to ‘piss off home,’ in a barely audible whisper, that she finally went and got a whole night’s sleep. While she was gone, he told the nurses to enforce visiting hours. I’ll never be sure if it was that he was trying to do Rosie a favour or if he just didn’t really want us to see him like that. Either way, it allowed her to scrap through a passing grade. 

It had taken weeks of antibiotics and pleural drains and he had still come away a shadow of what he had been before. He’d coughed so much he had broken two ribs, he had lost ten kilos and he had barely been able to stand up without assistance. It was like watching a skeleton mope around Baker Street. 

The resulting lesions on his lungs mean another bout of pneumonia could be deadly. His lungs are ruined. The things that happened in Serbia, Mary’s handy work, years of drug use have all combined to equate to some pretty serious health implications. It is fair to say that I worry.

I take a deep breath, knowing how much he resists my nagging, but… “Sherlock. You need to me more careful. I don’t want to lose you.”

“I know.” He breathes into my ear. His hands run up my thighs, ghost along my hips and across my stomach. My skin ripples under the warm water. I suck in a breath. It sounds sharp and hollow, bouncing off the bathroom walls.

“That’s not the way to get out of this.”

“Get out of what?”

“Hearing me out.”

“I’m listening. Carry on with your lecture. I won’t stop you.”

“You need to make sure you take care of your health.” I gasp as he runs a single fingertip up my inner thigh and directly over my balls. “Staying out all night is not taking care of yourself. You didn’t even rug up. You didn’t even, oh god, you didn’t even tell me where you were.”

“I’ll take a coat tonight then.” He nips at my ear as he speaks.

“Don’t you dare.” 

“I’ll take a coat and a blanket.”

I cannot see his hands beneath the bubble that glisten on the surface of the water but I can certainly feel it when both his hands drift down and encircle my cock. Barely touching me. A whisper of a touch. Blood and arousal flow faster than his movements.

“It’s not working.” I lie.

“Isn’t it?”

I groan. Defeated. My legs falling further apart.

I feel his chuckle against my back more than I hear it. Slow feather light touches speed up my breathing. The water feels hotter, but I know it’s my temperature that has changed. I run my hand along the outer expanse of his long thighs, encouraging, coaxing, teasing. 

“Oh Jesus,” I mutter.

His slow movements hardly cause a ripple on the surface of the water, but they make me spasm and squirm. One arm reaches around my waist and pulls me back against his chest.

“Be still,” he encourages, “you wouldn’t want to slosh the water out.”

I try not to thrust into his touch. My legs shaking with the effort. My fingers gripping his flesh. The twist of his slick wet hand wrings a spasm from me. It has only taken moments but, I’m so close to the edge. I want this to last. 

His legs squeeze around me, his knees over my ankles pulling them down and apart, holding me in place against him.

Then he pauses, lets his hands fall away. “What were you saying? It seemed important.”

“You bastard.” I grit out. 

“Perhaps not that important after all.” 

“I was very, damn it, important.” 

“Go on then.” He encourages.

“What you did last night was....” I begin as he trails a single finger along the length of my twitching cock. Regaining my thoughts, I have to speak in a rush to get the words out, “I was, um, I was worried about you all night.”

“Do you always think about me all night?” His voice is as teasing as the light touches that circle my slit. 

“Do that again.” 

He indulges me and my body pumps pre come in response. Both his hands pump my cock of three or four divine strokes, root to tip.

Then he stops again. Hand one hand still around me, the other playfully trying to keep my hips from jerking up. “I really feel like you have more to say. I don’t think you are expressing yourself to your fullest capacity. 

“I’m going to express myself all over the place in a moment.”

“Not if you don’t finish telling me what is so important to you.” I can feel his grin against my neck. He knows full well the way he is tormenting me.

“Careful, you need to be more…” I lose my train of thought as he pulses his hand around me. My stuttering echoes around the bathroom walls. 

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.” I concede as my hips jerk involuntarily, seeking friction, touch, pleasure. The tip of my cock breaches the surface of the water. The contrast of the warm water, then cold air, then warm water again it beautifully alarming.

“Shall I proceed?” He asks, calm and steady as ever.

“Please.” I nearly choke on the word in my effort to get it out.

He shrugs, and his hands move again. One sliding perfectly along my cock, the other running up my side and then thumbing at a nipple.

I am so hard it almost hurts. My hips twitch in time with his touch. He runs his tongue along the back of my ear. My breath is sporadic and ragged. His strokes long and fluid, but light, so light, almost too light. 

“Don’t stop.” I moan. My rapid breathing makes the water undulate and I can feel it along my entire body.

“You sure? There was something important you had to say.” He teases, but he doesn’t stop the blissful movements this time.

“Nope, I can’t think of anything.” 

I feel him hard against my lower back. His breath fast against me neck. Knowing that he is enjoying this just spurs me on. I push back against him. My mouth open, panting. “So good.”

His hand moves more quickly, the rhythm just right and the water ripples and splashes around his grip. 

“Still.” He whispers, his breath hot in my ear and I have to fight no to buck up into his fist. 

I grip both his tense thighs and try to follow his directions. 

Another twisting stroke and my orgasm overtakes me. Gasping and gritting my teeth, my legs shake against his hold; every muscle is taught. 

“I love you.” He breathes into my ear as he works me through the paroxysm of ecstasy, prolonging it.

Boneless, I sag against him. “Then stop trying to kill me, Sherlock Holmes.”

It takes me minutes to catch my breath.

“That didn’t get you out of this you know.” I warn him.

“Maybe for just a little while.” His reply is certain. His hands fall away. His legs release me.

“Probably.” 

“Worth it.” he chuckles.

“Would you like me to return the favour?” I ask hopeful that he wants to continue. Watching him come undone is such a rare pleasure.

“Oh no bother. I’d just like to just rest my eyes a bit.”

I am not surprised by his refusal. Nor hurt. I expected little else. He is so rarely interested in his own pleasure. I will never be sure whether it is the disinterest in sex that he has always claimed, or a residual symptom of the abuse he suffered in Serbia that makes him refuse. He is still an enigma to me, even after all these years. It would be unfair to pry though. He gives me more of himself than he gives to anyone else. To ask for more would be simply rude and I fear it would drive him away, make him even more reluctant to participate. 

Sometimes he does want more, sometimes he even seems to enjoy it, other times he stops and draws back into himself. It’s been years since he has had one if the full-scale declines into a shaking, sweating and heaving panic attack, but I wonder, while the physical symptoms have abated, to what extent the mental struggles continues.

The water is cool when I clamber awkwardly out, waking him up as I fumble to my feet. The bathroom mat is soaked and there are puddles and bubbles. I help him out of the tub, careful that neither of us slip. I get more towels from the beneath the sink and wrap them around him. He grunts as I push him towards the bedroom.

“Sleep a few hours. Greg is coming for dinner, I’m sure we will all end up sitting up late. Get some rest.”

“Let’s walk down to the sea before he comes,” he suggests, as if we don’t walk there every afternoon.

“Yeah, only if it’s not raining though, forecast is for showers.” I pull back the covers and he discards the towel wet towels onto the floor and drops into the bed. 

“I’m still cold, warm me up.” He requests I don’t know whether he is or if he is just manipulating me. He would never be so plain as to simply ask me to lay down with him. Either way, it is a good excuse to spoon around him, one I would not miss. I put my hand on his chest so I can feel every breath and every thrum of his heart.

As we drift off to sleep in the morning light I whisper into his ear as he did into mine earlier. “I love you.”


End file.
